Hello everyone! Due to personal circumstances I have recently had to sell my pride and joy, my Mac . I've been looking at computers online, but funds are very limited. Basically, I'm gonna end up with a computer with only 1GB RAM. A friend of mine has offered to sell me his laptop, which also has only 1GB but for cheaper, so with the remaining money I can afford to upgrade the RAM. I've looked online and discovered that the laptop can only be upgraded to 2GB. Will this be sufficient? I make a lot of games in Pygame, and I don't konw if they will run properly. Obviously I realise it isn't going to run as smoothly as my Mac (sigh) but will it be sufficient to run my games on? There's really no way for me to tell without buying the computer and the Ram upgrade, and I don't want to buy it and find out that it doesn't work properly. I'll get something better as soon as I have the funds, but I'm not really sure how long that will be. This is just a temporary fix. Does anyone here have any advice?

Due to personal circumstances I have recently had to sell my pride and joy, my Mac

this should be a good moment, not sad. Just kidding. I dont like Mac's

Basically, I'm gonna end up with a computer with only 1GB RAM

Basically your answer is yes! You have to do it right. See bottom!

I would choose the desktop over the laptop:desktops are always better than laptops, 1) desktops have large/more fans than laptops, which means they stay cooler. 2) desktops can be upgraded easily and cheaper.

This is just a temporary fix. Does anyone here have any advice?

I suggest not buying a Mac next time. Save the money you would be putting into the MAC OS, and build your own desktop with a lot of power and RAM and use linux.

Anyways, use linux. I have a netbook that i run a small linux OS on. https://www.linuxliteos.com/You have to avoid the large desktop environments though, they chew up a lot of real estate. But i have lately been using linux lite on small devices such as old desktops, laptops, or netbooks with not much power as it is light and yet not as light as some. It is also a good OS for very new people to linux. And also the creator hangs out here, so you can ask questions till your heart is content.

But basically, there are linux's that only require 512MB of RAM. And you have at least 1GB, maybe 2 if you upgrade. If you put a light linux on, you wont have any problem running your pygames.

Actually my server is running on less than that. My current server has an 8 GB HDD, and 512 MB, and runs fine. OF course its not running GUI's but it is doing a lot better than if using Microsoft.

Wow, is Linux that good? Sweet well I'll do that then. One question though-do I have to copy it to a dvd? Everything that I've read so far just talks about downloading it tio a dvd, but I dont have a dvd drive. Can I not just download it straight to the computer?

You will also have to remember that when you are using the "live" version, where its all running off the USB, that it is much slower than when its installed. I always save a USB stick for linux distro installs. It comes in handy. Especially as netbooks must be installed this method as they have no drive.

Using the USB installer is the easiest for new people by the way.

EIDT:You may have to play with BIOS. REarrange the order of boot, and make the hard drive last. Well that is extreme, but make the USB before the hard drive, otherwise it will never boot the usb, and always boot the previous operating system.

Lol, i wish i could get that far! I downloaded linux, and tried to put it on the usb stick with unetbootin, but it said windows cannot open this file. So I followed the link on my little error message and ended up downloading winzip. Once I'd done that and unzipped the file, it told me that the stick needs to be reformatted to FAT32. Fantastic. And even better, my dad said he didn't want me 'messing around' with his USB stick. So that's out the window. Then I borrowed a USB disk drive off of a mate of mine. I downloaded a program to burn the DVD, and cracked on. One done, I watched a video online of some dude installing Linux lite with a disk. He opens it in something called virtual window, but he already has Linux installed on the computer. I can't see any virtual window. I changed boot order around so that USB cd-rom was at the top-no difference. If I try and open the file I find four separate folders and four seperate files. I have no idea what to do with them. I think I'm screwed lol

which file can you not open in windows?you are downloading unetbootin for windows right? unetbootin will run on whatever operating system your on, to make the linux usb.

the virtual window environment was just to show the process of doing it (so he could record it). ignore that fact except for what he is doing in it. What he is doing in it, is what you would be doing on your install.

ntfs partitioning is windows only. while linux uses FAT32. However, FAT32 can be used by both windows and linux. All my drives are Fat32 for this reason

3) insert USB4) open unetbootin 5) Clear the USB stick. Delete everything from it, reformat it if needed. Make sure the USB has enough room for the iso file. 6) in unetbootin, select Diskimage, ISO, and the path to the iso on your system. CLick the 3 dots to open a filemanager to navigate to the iso. Select the .iso file you just downloaded. In the lower options, make sure the options are set to USB Drive, and the Drive option set to your USB that your using. If you only have the USB stick in, it should default to that USB stick, but that is not always true. You may have to change it to the USB path.7) Once you click OK, you should be waiting for a bit to have it make the image on your usb. Whjen its done, it will ask you if you want to restart.*at thispoint you are done with windows as your next step is deleting windows and installing linux.

8) restart the computer with the usb in. Once you retart your computer with the USB in the computer, and if your BIOS is set to USB before HDD, then once the computer turns on, it will not boot windows, but either boot an option menu or just boot the live (which is linux running off the usb)9) If option menu, boot up the live, or in linux lite's case, jsut start linux lite10) this will either take you to linux running off the USB stick, linux always has an desktop icon to install on the live, or will take you to into the install menu. Select that to start the install process.

I borrowed a usb from my dad, but he's being a d*ck and won't let me reformat it. Do I have to open the torrent that I download, or do I just copy it as it is? Someone told me that the torrent is not the iso. But if I open the torrent using winzip, there's like 4 folders in it, and four seperate files as well.

Ok, the link that you provided me for the download has sort of worked and I'm now looking at a Linux screen. Well, sort of anyway. The display only goes halfway down the screen for some reason. Could this just be because I'm running it from a disc? Do just install it anyway and hope it's ok? I'm a bit worried about this

edit-as it loads a little message comes up saying 'iormap error, requested 0x10, got 0x0'. Is this a problem with the computer?

Ok, the link that you provided me for the download has sort of worked and I'm now looking at a Linux screen.

define what you you mean by "linux screen"?

Someone told me that the torrent is not the iso. But if I open the torrent using winzip, there's like 4 folders in it, and four seperate files as well.

This is the part that i am getting confused on. At no point should you be looking a directories within a torrent. The torrent should have 1 file, the .iso file in it. This iso file you can open, but you dont want to, because you need the iso file as a whole.

also this is a python forum. As i am happy to help, posting on http://www.linuxdistrocommunity.com/forums/will get you more responses with different ideas from people that are more into linux than i, and the creator of the distro itself. Plus a guy who works on Ununtu linux hangs out there. They are very use to beginner questions. No question is too stupid. These guys are a lot nicer than some (hint**, Arch Linux). You can also chat on IRC with these same guys at irc.freenode.net on channel #linuxdistrocommunity

Ok, i'll post my problem on there. It will be a lot easier for them to understtand anyway, because they won't have to see all the problems I had at the beginning (which to be honest were all down to my stupidity lol). Anyway, thank you very much for all your help metalburr, it's very much appreciated.